It started with a lady in the clouds issuing you a challenge in a 30-second TV commercial. “As you look at your next phone bill,” she said as dark billows moved rapidly across the sky behind her, “try and make sense out of the fact that it’s more expensive to…
Good morning, children, and welcome back to class. You may have noticed that a new student has joined us. Or, actually, quite a few new students. About 60 million, to take a quick guess. Say hi, everybody. Now, they might look familiar, they might look a little like the teenagers…
Is everybody happy? It took some time, some help from Dallas City Councilman Al Lipscomb, and complaints from one royally P.O.’d resident, but at last someone at City Hall has decided that having semis rumbling through a city park is not a good idea. Seems obvious, you say? You poor…
Earlier this month, alarm bells sounded within the small, increasingly skittish world of Texas historic preservationists when they learned that city officials in Waxahachie were planning to raze eight shotgun houses that are listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The houses, whose owners live in Dallas, have become…
Spot the hypocrite Did anyone else notice the irony here? Even as the Dallas Observer seeks solutions to Plano’s problems with youth and drugs [“Bad trip,” May 6], the publication places an ad for a head shop selling “body detoxifiers” and “[rolling] papers” alongside the text of the article on…
Consider the challenge: It’s your job to sell a presidential hopeful who, compared with his rivals, possesses only the skimpiest national resume. Even magazine publisher Steve Forbes, running for vanity, notoriety, whatever, has driven around the block once before as a presidential candidate. But your guy, despite his youthful good…
Waiting for the city to fix your street? Waiting for them to help your elderly neighbors with basic home repairs? To do anything at all to improve your neighborhood? Don’t hold your breath. The money’s there–$22 million in federal funds. The problem is, the city council and the mayor have…
Spare the rod and spoil the rider Buzz has never understood the love affair Texans have with their cars. (Now in their cars–that’s a different story.) We’ve also never been one to snub mass transit, particularly since the old Buzzmobile is about as sexy as a pair of Dr. Scholl’s…
One angry mom Apparently Christopher Brown’s potshots at the media blunders in the Routier trial have rubbed off on the Dallas Observer’s very own Ann Zimmerman. Her attempts at ridiculing the people who are involved in the Darlie Routier case were not amusing to me [“The cult of Darlie,” May…
If Oak Cliff were its own state, the rooster might be its state bird. That, or the finger, extended with pride and pointed north across the Trinity River, where like-minded creatures phone one another on Nokias as they tear across a concrete landscape in their Lexus RX 300s. At least…
INS barks back I note that your recent article about the INS office [“Huddled masses,” April 8] has generated several letters to the editor that echo reporter Juliana Barbassa’s “totally objective” piece. As the acting district director for the Dallas office for nearly one year and a 33-year veteran of…
Milan Michael Malina wasn’t the first Plano youth to die of a heroin overdose. In the endless game of death and law enforcement that we call the war on drugs, it’s hard to tell what number he rolled. According to The Plano Star-Courier, he was the eighth of 15 deaths…
If they start throwing chairs, you’ll know you’re on the wrong set.” With such sage advice, my 11-year-old daughter bid me adieu before I jetted off to Los Angeles on less than a day’s notice to appear on the Leeza Gibbons show, the outer ring of TV talk-show hell. On…
Dallas Observer staff writer Jim Schutze has been named a winner of a 1999 Unity Award for political reporting. The Unity Awards in Media, sponsored by Lincoln University of Jefferson City, Missouri, honor outstanding reporting on issues concerning minorities. Schutze won for his April 16, 1998, cover story, “Saint Al,”…
Stung by a recent rejection, thrilled by a rumor that someone attractive might like them, the Dallas school board leaped into the arms of San Francisco schools chief Bill Rojas without a wisp of investigation or information about his past. If recruiting a new school superintendent were anything like romance,…
On a bill and a prayer Texas legislators appear to be taking kindly to the complimentary subscription to the Dallas Observer they began receiving this year. Some say they actually are reading the articles, even the long ones. One story causing a stir in Austin is “Holy Handouts” (January 21)…
A commercial truck carrying bottled water rumbles up the rocky street, stopping in front of one of the 25 or so homes in a listless neighborhood in the town of Socorro, 10 miles east of El Paso. The driver slings a water jug over his shoulder and drops it on…
Dysfunction junction “Are you a member of the NAACP? If not, why not?” asks the voice of Dallas branch not-quite President Lee Alcorn on his office answering machine. Good question. Here’s a good answer: because our own family is plenty dysfunctional. We don’t need to pay dues to join another…
It would be unfair, at this point in time, to paint a portrait of Dallas Independent School District Superintendent-designate Bill Rojas as a man wearing a several-sizes-too-small miniskirt, reclining on a cheap Chinese love seat with a come-hither look while he waits for history to come through the door and…
The thing about the current Dallas City Council is that the truth tends to get them all upset, whereas they never seem to mind all that much being lied to. At the April 21 council briefing, North Dallas council member Sandy Greyson asked David Dybala, the city’s head of public…
Info:Correction Date: 05/06/1999 Info: Vapor war ION Storm’s Daikatana still isn’t out, but several legal filings are By Christine Biederman For a bunch that set out to have the highest profile in the $2.5 billion-a-year, in-your-face computer-game business, the silence has been deafening. In fact, if you strain hard enough,…
We can only hope In reference to the April 15 Dallas Observer cover story “The fandom menace,” I understand that high-tech employers are worried about the so-called “Star Wars flu,” in which hundreds of thousands of fanatical Star Wars geeks plan to call in sick on May 16 just to…
